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LG Optimus G beast is now official, to hit Korea in September

Apple’s legal wins in the States might not be Samsung’s only worry right now, as the South Koreans may also soon lose their Android smartphone supremacy. At least in the high-end niche, where LG is about to launch a quad-core “beast” far snappier than Sammy’s Galaxy S3.

As usual, the announcement was made via a Korean press release, although a more “sumptuous” unveiling is still expected to happen at the IFA 2012 in Berlin. There aren’t that many surprises in the press release, but we are very happy to notice that the Optimus G’s final design looks quite far off those leaked pictures from a few days ago.

The Optimus G won’t exactly come with “sexy” curves or any design breakthroughs, but sometimes simplicity can bring excellence. That said, the first official pics are exquisite, as far as I’m concerned, showing off a clean industrial-looking phone with personality, charm and elegance.

It’s a pretty manly handheld, although it will weigh just 145 grams and measure 8.45mm in thickness. The vertical and horizontal bezels are almost invisible, which is mostly due to LG using “fully integrated touch technology”, also helping reduce the air gap between the display and the surface.

The “True HD” IPS LCD display could be one-of-a-kind, with a 4.7-inch diagonal and a 1280 x 768 pixels resolution. In terms of hardware, there isn’t much we can say other than to urge you to prepare to see benchmarks massacred.

As Qualcomm themselves confirmed last week, the Optimus G will be powered by a quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 CPU, coupled with a stunning new Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM. There’s only one other phone confirmed as being equipped with the S4 Pro proc, but Xiaomi’s Mi2 doesn’t yet have an ETA for Europe or the States.

The Optimus G will be coming with a 2,100mAh battery, dual 13MP / 1.3MP cameras, Android 4.0 ICS out of the box, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, DLNA, Wi-Fi and 4G LTE speeds. These are all pretty great specs, but there are two details that might raise some concern.

On one hand, there’s the lack of Jelly Bean on board this “beast”, which might not be extremely disappointing if an upgrade were to come soon after Optimus G’s release. However, we know LG’s track record with ICS updates, so our fear is that this big guy will not be treated with JB goodness by the end of the year. The battery is another huge concern, as Qualcomm seemed to be hinting at the using of a separate chip for LTE aside from the quad-core S4 Pro, a combination that might drain a lot more “juice” than usual.

All concerns aside, the LG Optimus G still looks a game changer to us, which is why it was great to hear that it will hit Korea as soon as next month with Japan following soon after and a worldwide launch scheduled “by the end of the year.” And no, we don’t think European and U.S. tech enthusiasts will have to wait until November or December, as we highly suspect the Optimus G to be exactly the same as the Eclipse spotted getting FCC approval not long ago.